Mesosaurs

Mesosaurs are fossils of extinct reptiles. So far they have been found only in south Africa (Namibia), and Eastern South America (Brazil, Uraguay and Paraguay). Most commercial specimens come from the Irati formation, Sao Mateus del Sol, in Brazil. Three Mesosaurs are part of our Creation Research collection. They are extremely well preserved and two of them are entwined in death.

1. They range in size from about 40cm to a maximum 2m long, but very few small or juvenile Mesosaur fossils are known.

2.Their skeletons are usually enclosed in fine grained, thin layered (or varved) sediments such as shales.

3.No stomach contents have been detected to date, but well preserved needle sharp teeth are interpreted as meaning either they used their teeth to sieve their food or fed on fish.

4. The skeletons of Mesosaurs are found in great abundance and mostly in an excellent state of preservation, which means many individuals were rapidly buried together in catastrophic event/s. The small number of juvenile Mesosaur fossils is usually interpreted to mean either a vicious current has sorted creatures by size, or the viciousness of the catastrophic event has totally disintegrated juveniles.

5. The fully articulated skeletons indicate very rapid burial in anaerobic conditions where even bloating of the skeleton can't occur, due to both the rapid and deep burial as well as the resulting inability decomposing bacteria to function.

6. Most skeletons are tummy down, but a few are upside down with rarely skull and neck on its side. The absence or orientation is consistent with massive turbidity currents.

8. The skeletons at Rio Grandosul however are orientated in the same direction as fossilized pine trunks found in the bed -in a general north south direction.Therefore both the Mesosaur skeletons and tree trunks were transported together with a huge volume of sedimentary material in the direction of massive current produced by great storm/s activity.

9. A few skeletons show some breakage and bone scattering, but no evidence of erosional wear. If the skeleton bloated and floated to the surface then it would shed bones from the one animal over quite a distance.

10. The 2 Mesosaurs in this block are fossilised one around the other.

11. The fossil head shows no sign of bone disintegration or separation from the neck vertebrae- a sure sign of rapid burial and preservation.

12. Note the second head just visible under the top skeleton.

13. Some Mesosaur skeletons are in parts but show no sign of wear and tear by erosion, so it has been suggested this has been caused by their being gentle distorted by the increasing pressure of the accumalating still soft and moving sediment.

14. Look at the edge of the slab and note the alternate dark and light layers. These are called varves.

15. Varves are usually interpreted as each pair representing a year passing. Light layer for winter (little plant matter) dark for summer (much plant growth)

16.This cannot be true in this case as even the Mesosaur limb goes through many layers. The Mesosaur took many years to be buried, it's limb bones would have fallen apart. The varves can only represent alternate current deposites.

17.Mesosaurs have played an interesting role in the theory of Continental Drift. In 1915 Wegener used their fossils to try and tie the continentstogether. Wegner claimed that since Mesosaur fossils are found only in eastern South America and western Africa, they are evidence of a once common continent, rather than the previous explanation of a vast land bridge between Africa and South America that had sunk out of sight.

18. Mesosaur fossils appear suddenly in the fossil record, and disappear equally suddenly, and their fossils show no sign of evolution during theirexistence. They certainly occur in layers that were rapidly formed under such catastrophic conditions that pine logs had been violently removed fromthe land by water, then dumped and buried along with the Mesosaurs by a vast moving flood current full of mud. Therefore the evidence from Mesosaurscannot be used to prop up the theory of vast amounts of time being preserved in rock layers. Mesosaur deposits are another good example of there being plenty of theories and opinions about evolution which disagree with the Biblical picture of creation and Noahs flood - when the facts don't disagree with the Bibles record at all.

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